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Ellen and Ned #3
Taking the Reins
A young rider encounters well-known horses and new friends in the final installment of the Ellen & Ned trilogy by Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley.
Ellen's family has moved to a new town...but some things, like her love for horses, remain the same. Ellen is now the proud owner of her own horse, Tater. She's learning new skills and challenging herself as a rider...but she still can't stop thinking about Ned, the feisty former racehorse she sees on the ranch during her lessons.
In the meantime, Ellen's making new friends and encountering old ones. Most exciting of all is Da, a boy from a riding family who is possessed of a spirit of mischief and daring and knows his own mind.
Ellen still has a lot to learn...about horses, friendship, and herself. And will she ever be able to get Ned off her mind?
Ellen's family has moved to a new town...but some things, like her love for horses, remain the same. Ellen is now the proud owner of her own horse, Tater. She's learning new skills and challenging herself as a rider...but she still can't stop thinking about Ned, the feisty former racehorse she sees on the ranch during her lessons.
In the meantime, Ellen's making new friends and encountering old ones. Most exciting of all is Da, a boy from a riding family who is possessed of a spirit of mischief and daring and knows his own mind.
Ellen still has a lot to learn...about horses, friendship, and herself. And will she ever be able to get Ned off her mind?
- GenresAnimals
208 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2020
5 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
About the author
Jane Smiley
133 books2,711 followersJane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained a A.B. at Vassar College, then earned a M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. While working towards her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1981 to 1996, she taught at Iowa State University. Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story "Lily", which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997. In 1995 she wrote her sole television script produced, for an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Her novella The Age of Grief was made into the 2002 film The Secret Lives of Dentists.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal Aspects of the Novel, that roams from eleventh century Japan's Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji to twenty-first century Americans chick lit.
In 2001, Smiley was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained a A.B. at Vassar College, then earned a M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. While working towards her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1981 to 1996, she taught at Iowa State University. Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story "Lily", which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997. In 1995 she wrote her sole television script produced, for an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Her novella The Age of Grief was made into the 2002 film The Secret Lives of Dentists.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal Aspects of the Novel, that roams from eleventh century Japan's Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji to twenty-first century Americans chick lit.
In 2001, Smiley was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 17, 2020
A horse-lover's delight, this book closes out the Ellen & Ned series as Ellen continues to gain confidence in her riding skills and being herself. With the example of Da, a new friend who likes to take risks, Ellen, who is going into sixth grade soon, realizes that it's perfectly fine to be herself and do the things she loves to do. As readers of the series will recall, she just can't forget about Ned, the former race horse that is nearby during her riding lessons. There is quite a lot of horse-related detail in the book so someone who isn't all that familiar with horses might not be as charmed by it as others would be. I had to smile at the scenes in which Ellen is reading to Da and how she often chooses to read books about horses for her own reading pleasure, just like many girls her age. I would suggest reading the other two titles before reading this one in order to trace Ellen's growth.
January 2, 2025
I finished this book in 3 days as I found it very engaging. I recommend that you read the other 2 books (riding lessons + saddles and secrets), but out of all 3 I think this is the best one. There is lots of horsey terminology which non-equestrians may not be familiar with. This series is a young horse lovers delight and super fun to read!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews